Freelancer.com Reviews

This company offers no protections for freelancers. I worked for hours on a project only to be told that my employer hadn't set up automatic billing, so I wouldn't be getting paid AT ALL. Their solution was to email him twice, hoping he would decide to pay me. I just lost all the money I earned. No other options. No fallbacks. Just out money. They do not care at all about their freelancers. Everything is geared toward protecting employers. The guy who swindled me? His account is still active and unaffected.

This site is WORSE than just freelancing on your own!

Fraudulent, they took back money twice from completed projects I had following a verbal altercation with customer service (the problem was I paid for 50 bids to enter projects, but they took out the 8 free monthly bids that I had already used). Then the day after I had $85 US missing. They took money from my account stating they had a problem with the projects holders (Even if they were done 8 months ago). Tried to solve it, they just shut me down and there's no way to contact them now. Also, at LEAST half of the projects are fraudulent, people only there to ask your info on another platform (that tells me they're atrociously lacking security). I strongly recommend using other sites, surely not that crap.

First, let me qualify myself by sharing that I'm a fulltime freelancer and that I use other sites and have extraordinary results. I am a top provider with hundreds of satisfied clients around the globe, so I speak from experience.

I found Freelancer.com to be entirely useless, ineffectual, and a total waste of time. When I closed my account, these gypsies continued to bill my PayPal and help themselves to MY MONEY; and they had the gall to act clueless for a MONTH as I endured a half-dozen back and forth email exchanges. As I tried to get these brainless airheads to return the money they took from me, I got the feeling that they may be trained to drag out the return/credit process as long as possible in order to hold onto the funds. Basically, Freelancer.com, from my perspective, offers ZILCH value for a legitimate fulltime freelancer. The site is antiquated, unsophisticated, and very unprofessional; and from my experience, I have no trust or faith in Freelancer.com. (Also, take note of others' complaints that the site holds onto freelancers' money for a long time before remitting it. Had I seen THAT before, I'd have never bothered to explore the site, in the first place.)

It's just my opinion, but I suspect that we'll see this site will fall on its face and go away before long. There's no way such a poorly-run, unprofessional, desperate business can sustain itself - especially when it doesn't garner trust in the marketplace!

Customer support got to a point of being ridiculous. Having to explain the situation to seven different staff (Stanley, Bailey, Oscar, Phoebe, Dana, Jessica, Eric) regarding the same issue, worse still there is no internal communications between them. How in the world do they expect to solve anything when it needs to get repeated at each stage?

Context: I was extremely dissatisfied with the work of a freelancer I engaged (being overpromised that she could deliver everything smoothly), thus filed to void the contract with her since funds were not released. She disputed, I raised it to arbitration where it ruled in my favor. Following that, she has and still is constantly raising complaint tickets against me out of spite, pointing out I'm still using her work despite messing everything up.

Whatever she messed up, I had already gotten my current developer to fix them, so that is in no way her work. For the minute few design details, of course, I have to keep it on!

Look at it this way, if she had messed those up as well, my developer could have easily change those too, and the difference would be clear. But my briefs to her would have been the same regardless of who, and they'd still do the same in the end. I need my website to look like how I intended don't I?! I can't possibly change my design just because a previous developer is throwing a hissy fit, right?

So despite explaining these to the seven different staff and numerous email trails, Jessica finally closed off the ticket, apologizing for the numerous follow-ups and showing her understanding of the situation. THE NEXT DAY, Eric sent another email raising another complaint email about the developer, saying I'm still using her work.

Are you guys serious now?

Do you guys even check the history of the issue, check the validity of the complaints, check between your team before harassing the employers on there. This will be the last project I'm engaging Freelancer with.

I had to use this site for receiving a single payment since the company I was freelancing for couldn't add me as a contractor.

Besides the worst UX experience and most complicated payment system I have ever seen, they also took 10% of the payments and I had to jump through a bunch of insane hoops, like taking photos of myself with my ID and a code, just to get my account approved to get paid. After all that crap, they are also holding the payment for two weeks.

Using this site was a huge mistake. I understand most of the people using it are freelancers from third world countries, trying to compete for small projects. I have no experience there, but the fact this site charges nutty fees for these people to receive work is straight up criminal. Absolutely terrible. Definitely a mistake I won't make again!

They overcharged my credit card for services not requested. The agreed amount was $60.99, they posted $256.05. Upon my complaint, they insisted I was to blame and threatened legal action against me. Their dispute resolution methods are a joke because they never resolve anything only delay, delay, delay. It took months to straighten out, and I had to resort to blocking further charges from Freelancer through my credit card company. My opinion - stay away from this company and these people. If I could give less than one star, I would.

My customer support experiences were horrible! I will try to keep it short. I am a graphic designer, so these experiences are from my standpoint

UNDERSTAFFED: They probably are understaffed since it took even 10+ minutes for me to get to talk to a CS rep through live chat. I've had tickets waiting 7+ days to be answered. I had to insist on them answering my tickets or else my guess is it would've taken longer.

I think I could count their CS reps on my fingers. Numerous times I have talked to the same rep. Coincidence? For such a big company you would expect more CS reps. At least I would.

POORLY PREPARED: I had to wait a lot on occasions for things that could have been easily solved and answered in a couple minutes. when the contest department needed to judge if my work was original they deemed it a "copy" even though they were presented proof of the originality of my work. Either because of lack of expertise or laziness. I have had CS reps contradict each other on some statements.

RUDE: They didn't want to continue talking about my issue because they considered it solved (which it wasn't).

STUBBORN: They wouldn't accept any other point of view except theirs, which by the way is relied on their "experts" (this combined with the two points above make for a terrible combo).

UNPROFESSIONALISM: Whenever I tried to make a complaint regarding my experiences with customer support I was directed towards THE SAME CUSTOMER SUPPORT. Very professional attitude!

Oh and on top of that are the numerous "security issues" for which your money will be reversed or not be released on to your account (yes, even for guaranteed contests). By security issues my guess is clients doing chargebacks after the projects have been finished. So you as a freelancer do all the work your client needs and then if he does a chargeback or whatever happens with his payment, you will lose the money received because as long as the money is in your account on Freelancer.com it's their money, not yours.

Overall, I don't recommend this platform to anyone, if I would be you, I would stay away from them. If you search google for "freelancer.com bad," I think there are lots of articles worth taking into consideration when thinking about joining this platform.

Avoid Freelancer.com. Don't be fooled by scammers. There are many freelance platforms, and Freelancer is the worst. They should be closed and convicted and end up in jail for stealing money and cheating with fake projects. Do not pay money if a contest has ended without payment. It is best to avoid these scammers.

I have been a using the platform for +5 years. The first time I was robbed by the platform is when a user hired me for hourly work and after a month of payment, that user's account was closed and they took money from my bank account to settle the charges of the stolen credit card instead of using their insurance to cover for their mistake! Lastly, I entered a guaranteed contest last month and after winning it with hard work and receiving my earned price money, again they closed the contest holder's account and put my account in minus with the sum of the fee that I received, despite that I delivered my hard work after signing their waiver contract! Now, please, to all new freelancer - DO NOT USE THIS scam platform.

They don't even deserve my one star. The most evil company in the entire universe. I think they bought these reviews because they don't even deserve any recommendations. Freelancer.com practices economic slavery and grows under the baseline of racism.

I can prove it.

My story is this. I started working as a freelancer in 2009 with Rent A Coder before they sold to vWorker, and I also worked with Scriptlance, and I was contented with these two before they sold out to this evil company. Before then, I joined Freelancer.com but was not comfortable with their disorderly practice, so I abandoned the site and continued with vWorker and Scriptlance.

Scriptlance and vWorker sold to Freelancer, that's how I found myself back to Freelancer.com. I felt uneasy initially, but due to my reviews, which is over 75, I decided to ignore their administrative issues and continue with them. I worked as a service provider with Freelancer.com for eight years with over 208 reviews, before I left for post-natal leave for a year, came back and discovered my account of over 10 years was closed.

The customer service told me they suspect fraudulent activities two months ago and I told them I gave birth and was off for more than a year. They promised to look into the issue but didn't reply again. I waited for their reply for weeks before I opened another account to ask them to reinstall my account. They told me three accounts were opened in my name. I confirmed that I abandoned one years back and I only use one account, which is the one with 208 reviews, that I need it reinstalled. The customer service promised to handle it and asked me not to open another account to chat with them, which I obliged, but they emailed me three weeks later and told me they don't need my services anymore. I asked why and got no reply until date. If I'm not a professional, I wouldn't have up to 208 good reviews.

As for the fraudulent activity, I recur once that my Freelancer account was hacked and $80 was stolen from me. I told support, but got no refund because they told me that their database got vulnerable and some hackers hit their system then. I bear those losses without complaint, so their claim that someone used my account while I was away didn't add up. I didn't give anyone my login details. Freelancer.com support asked me all these questions, which I answered, and they promised to reinstall my account.

Before this final reply from their manager. who emailed me that Africans are no longer needed, so "my services are no longer needed." I couldn't hold myself back because reporting people or company is not my thing, but I can't help but feel used by Freelancer to serve its clients' needs and made the company proud only to be dumped due to a racist attitude. I wasn't the only one complaining about it, two of my African colleagues working there told me their account was removed and an increasing number of white people are dominating Freelancer.com. But that database was built by the sweat of Africans and Asians. I'm not a racist since I enjoy meeting people of all race, that's why I chose to work from home. But their racist behavior made me believe there is more evil in this world than we humans know.

I will continue to share my ugly experience until Freelancer.com becomes notoriously popular for what they did to me. It's unfair that my effort of 10 years has gone down the drain and I will devote another 10 years and use legal actions to prove my innocence in this case. Please avoid Freelancer.com! Don't use them! Evil, selfish, and inconsiderate customer support, who doesn't look at details but runs to their bosses for stupid decisions.

I don't want to bother the readers with all the details, but basically, as soon as you ACCEPT the project, you're immediately charged a fee of 10% of the project bid amount, regardless of whether the employer even verified their payment method!

The worst circumstance of that is the fact that if something happens with the project, and you and your client mutually agree to cancel it, you can do it; however, the initial project fee the site took will NOT BE REFUNDED. It makes no sense, and it is absolutely cruel to freelancers.

Let alone the fact that the clients can basically receive the finished product and simply decide to cancel the project with imaginary reasons, the site will NEVER support the freelancer/worker in case of any dispute.

Because of the above-mentioned reasons, which basically kill any probability of Freelancer.com growing into a BETTER marketplace, my mark is 1 star, and if I could, I would rate it -10.

Thank you for reading.

I posted a request to load my content on a Real Estate website theme from theme forest. I received several counter offers from Freelancer to complete my job within 10 days. I accepted one from Pratiksha Sharma at Wave. Pratiksha and I exchanged many good conversations and emails, but all I got was promises to work on the site. This went on for three months. The site says it is risk-free, but this is not true. I lost $362.00 in deposits. I protested my credit card but too much time had passed. I think it's a scam site as no work was completed, and "risk-free" is part of the lure to make you feel safe. This took place May through September 2018.

I have been hired by a lot of clients, but two of them stand out very much. I was hired by them to do article assignments. I showed all the work before they marked the project complete and then paid me. Once I was paid, I was then blocked by the clients. The next day I have a payment reversal from said clients. They stole my work and passed it off as their own, and I have no way to write Freelancer and get them to see how I was done. Freelancer has NO protection for their freelancers about this kind of situation. For them, the client is ALWAYS right and us hard working employees are just there to make the clients happy. I've always written in the report a project on both of these several times because a client left a bad review but yet in messaging said the work was great and he wanted to rehire me. Once I saw his review, of course, I refused working further with him.

My point is, if we the freelancers have no protection from scamming clients then we are all at risk of doing work and then our pay being reversed, and there is nothing Freelancer.com will do about it. It is sad that a website that claims to be a leading employment site has no insurance for said employees. In my opinion, Freelancer.com should be investigated or either have some type of "contact us" form for when employees have been wronged. Without us, there are NO freelancers to work for the site.

I am very disappointed about the way the site is run. There are many fake projects posted that are usually foreigners wanting sexting or other adult entertainment. Clients hiring people should have rules they follow. For instance, if they look the work over and then pay the freelancer for the work, it should NOT be allowed to be reversed at all. The client is only accepting the work as complete because it met their standards for the said project. Disgraceful really how freelancers are done on that site. I do NOT recommend it to anyone. If you can get a place on Upwork that would be a lot better as freelancers are usually paid promptly, and I never had a person reverse a payment of mine on Upwork.

Thank you for reading, and best of luck if you do wish to work on Freelancer.

I used the platform for about a year. Actually putting some details into my bids yet have never received a followup response from job posters. Lots of international competition, likely pushing salaries to the floor as with the other platforms in this space. Lots of spam jobs posted as well; some clearly requesting a solution be explained before they even choose to meet, which can be copied immediately instead of hired. Most projects seem to be website development; I have this space, but not interested. Lots of duplicates.

Many people are saying you don't violate Freelancer policy, but you don't have control over this.

When some fraud employer give you work and sends you partial money, and after your work, he will do some violation of Freelancer so that his account gets deleted and the partial money you received gets reversed.

Their support will say your employer has violated their policy and you can contact the employer directly. How can we contact directly? Why is Freelancer for?

Came here with a project and experienced the worst customer service I've ever had - that is saying a lot this day and age.

They won't let you hold an interview with the people you consider hiring.

They won't accommodate your service requirements.

They'll cancel your account if you violate one of their terms indefinitely. Set aside a few hours to study the website if you even consider using their service. Read the terms and agreements thoroughly if you want to get on your knees and be graced by their service.

Make sure your computer security is at the highest level so you don't get scammed by the picture and text you hire.

Years ago it was one of the sites I used regularly as a freelancer. I had received tons of good reviews, high standing, and I got paid through it regularly with no problems.

Recently I decided to pick up some freelance work in my spare time, so I gave them another try. At first, everything was as I remembered - sure, 99.9% of it is idiots asking for labor cheaper than it would cost to keep slaves or freelancers blatantly lying about their skill set, but if you know how to look, you can get connected.

BUT...

Once you pick up work, that's where the crap hits the fan. Despite having in the past done tons of transactions, they forced me to go through this ridiculous and completely unnecessary (for anyone who knows anything about security) process for getting your funds out.

Call me crazy, but I suspect they're data mining and it has nothing to do with security.

There were WAY more fees than I ever remember. They took a huge chunk of my money.

Then, get this, even after you give them all the info anyone would need to completely steal your identity, they make you wait 15 days to get your money unless you "upgrade."

Seriously, forget you, Freelancer, give me my money so I can close my account and never use you again, please.

Anyway. If you are a freelancer, DO NOT USE THIS SITE. There is a very high likelihood you will never be able to get your money out. I can see tons of people not able to go through their "this is how you steal someone's identity" security process.

And frankly, I won't be shocked at all if they figure out some reason to not release the money I earned.

Keep in mind, this is work completed, released by the client and which the client loved. That's the money Freelancer is trying not to pay me, and every freelancer I imagine.

This site is nothing but a scam. This was the biggest waste of money and time. I went to the site looking for names and logos for a new website I was building. I got nothing but useless and dumb names. Something that could be done on 8th-grade level. When I complained to the company that out of nearly 2000 submissions of ideas that none were nearly suitable for what my company was looking for. That I still would have to give the money to someone even though they did not give me a name or logo worth using.

Yesterday on Freelancer.com after a long brainstorming, I hired a programmer and created a milestone for $150. Today morning I had an email saying thank you, here is "receipt for deposits on freelancer," and after 3 hours, I wanted to log in to say hello to my programmer, but it was not possible. I was blocked. I couldn't believe it. I wanted to know what the problem is. After 3-4 hours, they answered, "you violated the rules." I am shocked because I am not aware of violating rules. I don't know, maybe it's a misunderstanding or maybe they confused me with somebody...suddenly in the middle of the project, you get blocked.

1. I don't know what the programmer is doing, I can't log in to write to him to stop.

2. I don't know what's gonna happen with $150.

3. I don't know when I get an answer that I wanted to know which rules I violated..."thank you for your message, it can take 48 hours." Now I am in the middle of nowhere.

An unreliable way of working. I learned something new...thank you for teaching me this.

Do not post your jobs here, you are better of using UpWork or some other freelancer website. All the bids freelancer posts are fake. After posting a project, so many of the freelancers were unable to actually complete the job despite accepting the job in the first place.

A massive waste of time. The freelancer I finally awarded the job to wasted two months and delivered nothing. After constantly chasing and giving pointers on what to do, they were still unable to deliver.

Upon trying to cancel the project to get a refund. Freelancer.com prevents you from doing this. It's virtually impossible to get your money back, so if you sink thousands in a project, you could be left with absolutely nothing.

Never EVER use them!

I found what I had thought to be was a freelance position working as the operator of an online art gallery and turned out to be an online scam that cost me $2500 out of pocket. I am a struggling college student who doesn't have that kind of money, but it was taken out of my bank account. I did not share the bank information, but a returned check from this company has destroyed me. Freelancer.com does nothing to vet businesses, protect freelancers, or create an acceptable exchange for business ventures. I would absolutely not recommend this site, at all. It is horrible and should be shut down. Most of this site is also cam girl offers, which is not a freelance position. There are no vetting or community managers at all and reporting someone does nothing.

"Kayla B." was very helpful and fast. I want to thank you again. So have a nice day you guys. See you again. Thanks, Freelancer and thanks, Kayla B.

After sharing with Kayla B. my dissatisfaction with the results I received, she was very nice and professional, offered solutions to give me additional services and went above my expectations by her response and escalations. Although I did not get my work as I wished, people like her makes you want to give it a second try.

Thank you.

I had contact with Kayla B who was very helpful to resolve my issue. I was fully satisfied. Thank you so much Kayla B. Very fast and very good response to my concern on project fees. Kayla B also provided guidance on project and client cross check.

Kayla was a great help! I made a mistake with posting a contest instead of a project, and she assisted in swiftly refunding and crediting my Freelancer account for me to post a project.

Thank you!

I bid on a project to review a site on my own blog. I originally bid at $188, but agreed with the project owner to do it for $40. I completed the posts, and the project owner was happy and paid $40. In my Freelancer account, only $21.20 appeared. Without any notice I could find, Freelancer took $18.80 of my $40 fee.

When I tried to withdraw the $21.20, I got a message saying the minimum I could withdraw was $30.

After numerous attempts to reach Customer Service, the answers I received were useless. They merely ended up stating to me that I had to have a minimum of $30 in the account, and that I could bid for more jobs, to get to $30, so I could withdraw the paltry $20.

No explanation for why they took out so much.

As I told them, I will not bid for any more jobs. Many are only $1-3. It would take me months, if I won the bids, to work up a $30 minimum.

Against Federal law, they won't give me my money. I also believe they exploit people from other countries, especially those trying to bid from Africa and the Middle East. Taking almost half of the writer's fee is ridiculous

Stay away from them and live and learn.

My Freelancer got a hold of my account, logged in, paid himself and closed my user. Then he tried hacking into my email and Facebook account. I created a new account with Freelancer to report this fraud. They did nothing. They didn't care, communication was horrible, i.e., no number to call, chat take so much time to get an agent and you can go hours and hours without anyone responding to your support ticket. Eventually, I called my bank and disputed the charges. Never again I will use this platform.